In footage shown Tuesday, a WarnerMedia executive who was deposed ahead of Johnny Depp's defamation lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard said the actress's role in Aquaman's sequel was not affected by her marital woes.
Walter Hamada testified that Heard was not released from her contract as of 2021. He claimed the script, with her part, was written in 2018, shortly after filming the first film. About a dozen drafts were written before Heard ever wrote her op-ed in which she declared herself a victim of domestic violence and the subsequent lawsuit.
"The character's involvement in the story is sort of what it was from the beginning," Hamada said.
WATCH: AMBER HEARD RESTS CASE AGAINST JOHNNY DEPP FOR DEFAMATION FOR $100M
He went on to say that Heard's situation with Depp did not affect Heard's standing with the company. There were talks, which took place over several weeks, about recasting Heard after filming the first Aquaman.
"It was an issue with chemistry," Hamada said. He claimed it took Heard and lead actor Jason Momoa "a lot of effort to get there" in terms of meshing well together on screen. "The reality is, it's not uncommon for two leads to not have chemistry," Hamada added.
Later, entertainment lawyer Richard Marx testified once again as an expert in negotiating acting contracts, taking issue with talent consultant Kathryn Arnold's testimony Monday. Arnold was "not an expert in deal making," according to Marx, and her testimony was "wildly speculative" in his opinion.
Arnold compared Heard to actors such as Momoa, Gal Gadot, and Zendaya throughout her testimony. In Marx's professional opinion, they are not comparable actors to Heard, even after her "star is born moment" in Aquaman.
Marx admitted Heard could have made as much as $4.5 million on a third Aquaman installment, which has yet to be announced. Heard could not have expected to make that much in the second installment, according to the lawyer.
Forensic accountant Michael Spindler also took the stand for the second time during the trial. Spindler noted that 2019 was a "clean year," with Heard coasting from the success of Aquaman, and that no statements had been made by Alex Waldman, Depp's lawyer, that year.
The accountant agreed with Marx, who testified before him, that the best way to determine an actor's future pay is their past pay. Heard testified that she was paid $1 million for her role in the first Aquaman.
Spindler has never been an expert witness in a defamatory case.
Doug Bania, a social media expert, similarly returned to the stand to analyze previous testimony from the Berkeley Research Group's Ron Schnell, who examined over 3 million negative tweets about Heard since 2018. Bania pointed out that 35% of tweets were published prior to the allegedly defamatory statements made by Waldman, with the biggest spike in negative tweets coming prior to the statements.
Upon further inspection, Bania found that in January 2021, Schnell reported 750 negative tweets about Heard, but only 95 were unique tweets. Schnell counted retweets in his total.
The owner of the trailer that previous witnesses claimed Depp had trashed during a fight with Heard, Morgan Night, also testified. Night had responded to a tweet regarding the trial, saying he remembered the night the couple stayed at his inn and did not recall Depp yelling or laying hands on Heard.
"I didn't see anything like that," Night said on the stand. However, he went on to describe an argument between Depp and Heard that ended in Heard yelling at the actor.
"He was kind of cowering and seemed afraid," Night said in describing the "odd" incident. By the time the couple checked out, Night found that a single light fixture was broken, which Depp paid for. When it came to an extra cleaning fee, which Night referred to as a "piggy fee," Depp was not subject to paying it because other than the light fixture, the trailer was clean.
When Heard's lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, suggested that Night was excited to be a part of the trial and was actually Depp's fan, Night admitted he was not, causing the courtroom to burst into laughter.
Later, Dr. David A. Kulber, who treated Depp's finger following his injury in 2015, testified remotely. Kulber said Depp could barely move two of his fingers when in the cast. It would have been impossible for Depp to make a fist with that hand, he said, despite previous testimony that Depp hit both Heard and her sister, Whitney Henriquez.
This trial's fourth psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Shaw, also took the stand Tuesday to rebut the Monday testimony of Dr. David Spiegel on the basis that Spiegel did not meet with Depp. Shaw explained that in his opinion, Spiegel violated the "Goldwater Rule," which is an ethical standard issued by the American Psychiatric Association that precludes psychiatrists from offering opinions and diagnoses on a person they themselves have not personally examined.
The rule was named after 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, who faced a hailstorm of news coverage about psychiatrists who had never personally examined him finding him unfit to be president.
Shaw testified that in order to be classified as a "narcissist" or to be determined to be suffering mentally from substance abuse, Depp would have to undergo several psychological tests, just as Heard did before the trial began. Spiegel also claimed that Depp demonstrated behavior consistent with intimate partner violence, but according to Shaw, the same rigorous testing applies to such an opinion.
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